Methods and apparatuses for attaching balancing elements to vehicle wheels are known. After the vehicle wheel has been fitted, the imbalance of the wheel is determined in an imbalance measuring apparatus. In order to compensate for the measured imbalance, at least one balancing element is attached to the inner face of the wheel rim in a balancing station. It is often necessary to attach a plurality of balancing elements in different balancing planes. The balancing element to be attached is generally separated from a material strip, coated with a fastening means, for example double-sided tape, and adhesively bonded to a pre-calculated position on the wheel rim inner face.
In order to ensure that the balancing element is permanently fastened, the surface to which the balancing element is to be fastened must be cleaned before said element is attached. Even small amounts of dirt can affect the adhesiveness of the fastening means.
It is known to manually clean the fastening surface before attaching the balancing element by wiping out the wheel rim inner face with a cleaning cloth. In addition, a volatile cleaning agent such as isopropanol or spirit can be used in order to improve the cleaning action.
However, a disadvantage of this is that reproducible cleaning of the wheel rims cannot be ensured and the amount of cleaning agent used can vary greatly. Moreover, the known type of cleaning cannot be integrated in a fully automated imbalance compensation process.